Trump plans national speech, border visit amid federal shutdown

An “empathy” message appears on the Mexican side of the border fence at the Otay Mesa entry in San Diego. President Trump will visit the border Thursday.

An “empathy” message appears on the Mexican side of the border fence at the Otay Mesa entry in San Diego. President Trump will visit the border Thursday.

Photo: Guillermo Arias / AFP / Getty Images

Photo: Guillermo Arias / AFP / Getty Images

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An “empathy” message appears on the Mexican side of the border fence at the Otay Mesa entry in San Diego. President Trump will visit the border Thursday.

An “empathy” message appears on the Mexican side of the border fence at the Otay Mesa entry in San Diego. President Trump will visit the border Thursday.

Photo: Guillermo Arias / AFP / Getty Images

Trump plans national speech, border visit amid federal shutdown

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WASHINGTON — With no breakthrough in sight, President Trump will argue his case to the nation Tuesday night that a “crisis” at the U.S.-Mexico border requires the long and invulnerable wall he’s demanding before ending the partial government shutdown. Hundreds of thousands of federal workers face missed paychecks Friday as the shutdown drags through a third week.

Trump’s Oval Office speech — his first as president— will be followed by his visit Thursday to the southern border to highlight his demand for a barrier. White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders tweeted that he will use the visit to “meet with those on the front lines of the national security and humanitarian crisis.”

The administration is also at least talking about the idea of declaring a national emergency to allow Trump to move forward on the wall without Congress approving the $5.6 billion he wants. Vice President Mike Pence said the White House counsel’s office is looking at the idea. Such a move would certainly draw legal challenges, and it was unclear whether Trump — who told lawmakers he would be willing to keep the government closed for months or even years — would see it as an acceptable alternative.

As Trump’s prime-time address and his border visit were announced, newly empowered House Democrats — and at least a few Republican senators — stepped up pressure on GOP lawmakers to reopen the government without giving in to the president’s demands. The closure, which has lasted 17 days, is already the second-longest in history and would become the longest this weekend.

Leaning on Senate Republicans, some of whom are growing anxious about the impact of the shutdown, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the House would begin passing individual bills this week that would reopen federal agencies, starting with the Treasury Department to ensure Americans receive their tax refunds.

There were other signs that the administration was working to control the damage from the shutdown, which has furloughed 380,000 federal workers and forced 420,000 others to work without pay. The National Park Service said it was dipping into entrance fees to pay for staffing at some highly visited parks to maintain restrooms, clean up trash and patrol the grounds, after reports of human waste and garbage overflowing in some spots.

The talks over ending the shutdown have been at an impasse over Trump’s demand for the wall. He has offered to build the barrier with steel rather than concrete, billing that as a concession to Democrats’ objections. They “don’t like concrete, so we’ll give them steel,” he said.

But Democrats have made clear that they object to the wall itself, not how it’s constructed. They see it as immoral and ineffective and prefer other types of border security funded at already agreed-upon levels.